Chapter X: Hollywoodization II

Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim (2013) (Source: Tumblr)

This week I'll be looking back at a previous blog post and taking a more extensive look at the topic than what I originally covered. For this extended blog post I'll be going over the idea of Hollywoodization and the reverse, the 'Asianization' or Hollywood; in regards to two different (yet similar!) texts, the 2013 Japanese anime series Shingeki no Kyojin and the 2013 American film Pacific Rim. A quick obvious warning though; spoilers for both may follow.

Mikasa Ackerman, the last Asian on Earth (Source: Deviantart)

Shingeki no Kyojin, or Attack on Titan in English, is a Japanese manga and corresponding anime series, about giant humanoids (Titans) with an insatiable hunger for human flesh. What's left of humanity have retreated within a series of walls, until one day the Titans breach the walls and the humans are forced to act lest they be wiped out forever.

Looking at Shingeki no Kyojin, it’s easy to see where Hollywoodization has been applied. One character, Mikasa Ackerman (left) is the last Asian human alive amongst the surviving population of humanity, playing upon an oft used trope in American cinema. The idea that Mikasa is the last Asian also suggests that the rest of humanity that we see is of Western origin. This implication then, that there is almost exclusively Western characters in a Japanese series, definitely suggests that this series has at the very least been influenced by Western culture, short of being 'Hollywoodized'.

Shingeki no Kyojin's 3D Maneuver Gear in action (Source: Tumblr)

Additionally, large battle sequences and set pieces often occur similar to the calibre of those in the Hollywood blockbuster, resulting in dramatic effects on the storyline; including major character deaths. Similarly, the usual martial art fighting style has been swapped out for a fluid, acrobatic usage of swinging on grappling cables reminiscent of Spiderman. As Klein (2004, p. 361) points out; fight scenes featuring martial arts have become a staple of action films across all genres, it's interesting to see a Japanese story move away from this and incorporate less stereotypical and mainstream styles into the the combat.

The anime’s score also has a notable mixture of Asian and Western influences. Classic Oriental strings can be heard amongst the various rock and electronica styles, and the lyrical tracks are not exclusively sung in English. Overall, the tracks are in fact not dissimilar from Pacific Rim’s soundtrack, the other text I shall be examining in the post.

Shingeki no Kyojin OST mini-mix (Source: YouTube)

Pacific Rim is a 2013 US film directed by Guillermo del Toro featuring huge robots, known as ‘Jaegers’, controlled by two human pilots, as the last hope for humanity against the continuing tide of giant monsters, ‘Kaijus’ emerging from the depths of the Pacific Ocean.

Concept art of the first Kaiju, 'Knifehead' (Source: NY Daily News)

The movie is heavily inspired by various Japanese films from the kaiju and mecha genres, like Godzilla (although del Toro has made a point of trying not to reference such films in favour of creating something original). The designs of both the Kaijus and Jaegers are drawn from both Western and Asian cultures. For example, the initial Kaiju that attacks San Francisco in the film is inspired by the original kaiju films from the 50’s and 60’s that scared the pants off Japanese movie-goers; while the Jaeger hailing from America, ‘Gipsy Danger’, draws upon elements of the art deco style of New York architecture. This blending of cultures and styles is similar to what Rosenbaum (cited in Klein 2004, p. 363) suggests as being Hollywood’s cultural identity is moving towards multinational as opposed to national.

The kaiju and mecha films of the Asian film industry are arguably well suited to be treated to the Hollywoodization experience, as they fit Klein's (2004, p. 363) description of a "spectacle driven film" and being designed as a "special-effects-heavy blockbuster" (Klein 2004, p. 363) allows for increased production value, possibly drawing wider audiences in.

Pacific Rim showing off its blockbuster scale (Source: pacificrim-movie.net)

Pacific Rim's financial success is intriguing though. In America, it was considered a box office-bomb, earning barely $100 million. However internationally it was a hit, grossing over $300 million; in China alone it grossed $100 million and became the highest grossing Warner Bros. film in China, while also being the sixth highest grossing US film of all time there. What exactly does this kind of data tell us? Perhaps that Americans are not as interested in an 'Asianized' Hollywood blockbuster as Asia is in a 'Hollywoodized' version of Asian genres. It's hard to say for sure based on a single film, but it does suggest that on an multinational level, combining cultures and styles is of interest to most of the world.

It’s obvious that “globalization’s homogenizing and heterogenizing tendencies” (Klein 2004, p. 372), are producing spliced products that are a new genre unto themselves, and we as consumers from both the Asian and Western markets will reap the rewards with amazing cinema and television to come.

The Kaiju 'Mutavore' attacking Sydney (Source: Tumblr)

Sources:

Klein, Christina 2004, ‘Martial arts and globalisation of US and Asian film industries’, Comparative America Studies, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 360-384. 

Chapter IX: Hollywoodisation

Shingeki no Kyojin, or Attack on Titan in English, is a Japanese manga and corresponding anime series, about giant humanoids (Titans) with an insatiable hunger for human flesh. Surviving humanity has retreated within a series of walls, until one day the Titans breach the walls and the humans are forced to act lest they be wiped out forever.

Looking at Shingeki no Kyojin, it’s easy to see where Hollywoodization has come in. One character is the last Asian human alive amongst a presumably European and American population, playing upon an oft used storyline in American cinema. Additionally, large battle sequences and set pieces often occur, reminiscent of those in the Hollywood blockbuster, resulting in dramatic effects on the storyline including major character deaths.

Mikasa Ackerman, the last Asian on Earth (Source: Deviantart)

The anime’s score also has a notable mixture of Asian and Western influences, not dissimilar from Pacific Rim’s soundtrack, a film also known for blending Asian and Western flavours.

Shingeki no Kyojin OST mini-mix (Source: YouTube)

It’s obvious that “globalization’s homogenizing and heterogenizing tendencies” (Klein 2004, p. 372), are producing spliced products that are a new genre unto themselves and we as consumers from both the Asian and Western markets will reap the rewards with amazing cinema and television to come.

Sources:

Klein, Christina 2004, ‘Martial arts and globalisation of US and Asian film industries’, Comparative America Studies, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 360-384. 

Chapter VIII: The Specular Economy

Personally, I don’t use social media in the same way that the media suggests people from my generation does.

Sure, I’ve got Facebook. I’ve got Twitter.

But not in the same way that’s stereotypical.

I spend most of my day on Facebook. Barely an hour goes by without me being online. But I don’t regularly change my profile picture; I don’t usually update my status. Don’t ask me what’s happening on my newsfeed; I rarely see when people check in, or get tagged in photos. Because I’m always on the Messages tab. It’s free, and thanks to Telstra giving me access on my phone at no charge, it’s cheaper than texting.

I usually check Twitter on a daily basis. But I don’t tweet. I don’t follow my friends. I follow certain actors, comedians, and writers, to see what they’re doing in relation to their current projects. I like to see behind the scenes photos. I like hearing the newest announcements.

So where does this place me in Marshall’s (2010, p. 498) ‘specular economy’?

Well, clearly I’m very okay with how I’m being represented and how I’m presenting myself in the online sphere. If I was really that bothered by what my profile picture was or what somebody wrote on my wall, I would be changing it.

But I don’t consider myself to be one of these people who checks themselves in the online mirror every two seconds (Marshall 2010, p. 499).

Sure, my usage of Twitter probably is contributing to the ‘celebrity’ phenomenon. I follow individuals so see what they’re up to and, in a way, hold them in high regard.

But I don’t consider myself to be giving them celebrity status and act like a crazed fan when I find out one of them has stopped eating meat, or is putting on weight.

I feel as though my interest is very much a ‘business’ style interest.

One of my favourite writers is working on one of my favourite shows? Cool!

One of my favourite actors has just signed up for a new movie with a decent synopsis? Awesome!

One of my favourite comedians is having a child? Well that’s good for them, but I’m probably not going to be discussing that with my friends at a later date.

Everyone’s a part of the specular economy. But I consider most to be large, multi-national traders of ‘specular’, while I’m a lowly small business owner.

Sources:
Marshall, D 2010 'The specular economy', Society, vol. 47, no. 6, pp. 498-502

Chapter VII: Games & Representation

In addition to watching television shows, I also enjoy playing copious amounts of video games. For this blog post, I’ll take a momentary detour from my usual topic and focus on video games.

Since it first came out, I’ve put in a shocking amount of hours into Fallout 3, and to a lesser extent, its successor Fallout: New Vegas. I’ve spent thousands of hours roaming the post-apocalyptic landscapes of Washington D.C. and the Mojave Desert. Both games allow for the player to create their own character, selecting their gender, race, physical appearance and, in New Vegas, their age. This lets the player enjoy the experience of the game as whatever kind of character they wish.

(Source: Bethblog)

However, a game does not automatically have excellent representation just because the player can create their own avatar. In fact, once the gaming community can get involved with the creation of new content thanks to ‘mods’, representation can severely deteriorate.

Some of the first mods to come out for these games were various nude mods, sex mods, and various underwear mods. Unfortunately, the majority of the images used to promote and show off such mods were through the use of female characters.

I have an oppositional reading to the one being presented by the modders (Hall 1973, p. 60, Raessens 2005, p. 375). While they see the game as a chance to express their fantasies in a virtual world, their exploitative nature of the female characters is in contrast to that of my own values.

The original games themselves, without the modded content, are not excusable either. There are many female characters that act as prostitutes and sex slaves, whilst there are far less male characters in the same circumstance, suggesting that perhaps women are less capable of surviving on their own in a lawless wasteland.

(Source: Rock, Paper, Shotgun)

What’s intriguing though is that the modders instantly went to bring more adult content into the game once it was released. Does this reflect society more aptly perhaps? That given some form of anonymity, those in the gaming community seek to marginalise females?

Ultimately it’s a complex issue that is constantly discussed, too much for a single blog post, but it’s definitely a conversation we should be having.

Sources: Hall, S 1973, Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse, Birmingham, pp. 507-17

Raessens, J 2005, ‘Computer games as participatory media culture’, Handbook of Computer Game Studies, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass, pp. 373-388

Chapter VI: Community Blogosphere

It’s often tricky to find people with similar interests at the best of times.

As many of you, dear readers, would have guessed, I enjoy television shows, mainly from overseas. While I use technology in a way to receive this content as fast as I can, my friends generally don’t, and are usually left watching whatever’s on our own television screens.

So it comes as little surprise when I ask them what they thought of Arrested Development’s fourth season on Netflix and they reply with; “What?”

Michael Bluth expressing how I feel. (Source: Tumblr)

To connect with others and discuss the various shows I love, I have to turn to the internet. As Lim (2012, p. 128) expresses, blogging is a tool which can be utilised by people to express and share their interests, forming a new communication sphere.

Through the blogging site, Tumblr, I connect with others who enjoy the same shows as I do, and we discuss all sorts of things relating to these programs, ranging from our favourite scenes and characters to various casting and new season news.

The blogosphere also allows for a sharing of creative works based upon the shows. For example, many bloggers create artwork known as ‘fan art’ and then share it with their various followers; able to receive both praise and criticism from anyone across the sphere. Fan art allows a user to show off both their artistic talents and their love for a character or program.

Supernatural fan art. (Source: Tumblr)

The community created by the blogosphere is not barred by geographical location; those I communicate with are, more often than not, not Australian. I believe this is a good thing. It allows for a more diverse discussion as people with all sorts of different backgrounds can come together to bond over a common interest and bring their own personal context to share, presenting a different look at the storyline and characters.

When so much of the Australian television ratings are dominated by reality programs, sports, and news coverage, it’s refreshing to be able to log on to the internet and connect with people about things that my own friends have little interest or understanding of.

Sources
Lim, M 2012, ‘Life is local in the imagined global community: Islam and politics in the Indonesian blogosphere’, Journal of Media and Religion, vol. 11, pp. 127-140

Chapter V: Überveillance

Person of Interest opening sequence. (Source: YouTube)

“You are being watched.

The government has a secret system, a machine that spies on you every hour of every day,”

The above is the opening sequence of the television series Person of Interest, attempting to explain the high-tech, paranoid, and scary world that the show is set in. The show revolves around a small team of individuals preventing crimes before they occur through the use of all manners of digital surveillance and tracking. Obviously this is a work of fiction, but just how far off reality is a show like Person of Interest?

Überveillance is a modern term involving the collection of data on individuals observed through the multiple types of surveillance, bringing together all these observations to create a network of information in order to track and predict a person’s movements based upon their habits and behavioural patterns (Michael & Michael 2010, pp. 9-10).

By thinking about how often I send and receive data, it’s not hard to see how my own movements could be predicted. Thanks to a dependency on routines, someone who had access to my phone, banking and Myki data would easily be able to know where I was.

Some of the data that 'The Machine' observes in Person of Interest (Source: Pedia of Interest)

It’s certainly possible, maybe even likely, that certain government institutions have access to this type of data and we can be observed with ease. However it’s another, larger, step to say that the current level of überveillance and technology is at a point where our actions can be predicted such that crimes can be successfully noticed and prevented from the tiniest shred of information, as is the case in Person of Interest.

Unless specifically stated in a text message or the like, it’s hard for surveillance to determine the actual context or reasoning for a person to be in a certain location at a certain time. For example, my phone’s location, Myki and bank card may suggest that I’m at the university campus; however without additional data it may be difficult to know what it is I’m doing there. Am I there for class? Am I just studying? Am I having coffee with a friend?

I have no doubt that technology will continue to evolve, and that überveillance will continue to incorporate more and more degrees of information, and that one day someone may hold more information on me than I know about myself.

I just hope that such a person has good intentions, and not ill.

Sources

Michael, M & Michael K, 2010 'Towards a state of uberveillance', IEEE Technology and Society Magazine vol. 29, no. 2 pp. 9-16

Chapter IV: Piracy

As stated in a previous blog entry, as Australian television viewers we’re often forced to wait lengthy periods of time to watch our favourite shows. Because of this, in conjunction with increasing access to faster and faster internet speeds, it’s unsurprising that Australia is now notorious for high rates of television piracy.

When Game of Thrones aired its Season 3 premiere at the end of March, it was watched by 5.5 million viewers in the US. It was then pirated by at least 5.2 million people, with the majority being from Australia (Ernesto, 2013).

US Ambassador Jeffrey Bleich (Source: News.com.au)

This led to Jeffrey Bleich, the US ambassador to Australia, condemning the actions of pirates. He argued that the cost of purchasing the series (or access to it), and the lag time between its airing in the US and Australia is not a good enough excuse to blatantly steal the product (Piotrowski, 2013).

At the time, Australians could purchase a season pass for $33.99 on iTunes, or sign up to a Foxtel subscription nearing $75 a month to watch the show. However, recently Foxtel signed a deal with HBO, meaning that the show can only be digitally downloaded after the entire season has aired on Foxtel first (LeMay, 2013). When Season 4 airs in 2014, the only legal timely method for Australians to view Game of Thrones will be through Foxtel.

Comic on The Oatmeal on Game of Thrones and piracy. Warning: a little NSFW. (Source: Kotaku)

Humorously, Time Warner Inc. CEO Jeff Bewkes has linked the piracy of Thrones to an increase in the number of subscriptions to HBO, saying that the positive word-of-mouth reviews generated by piracy provides them with more revenue at the end of the day (Spangler, 2013).

And this isn’t such a crazy idea. Many people have pointed out that those who acquire a digital product via free methods and then don’t purchase it in the end were likely never going to purchase it in the first place. As Doctorow (2008, p. 71) says, “I haven’t lost any sales, I’ve just won an audience”.

Pirates are nothing new in the world of Game of Thrones (Source: HBO)

When a CEO says that the huge levels of piracy is “better than an Emmy” (Bewkes, cited in Spangler, 2013), it’s probably time to consider whether the negative stigma attached to it is justified.

Sources
Doctorow C, 2008 Context, Tachyon Publications, San Francisco

Ernesto 2013, ‘Top 10 most pirated tv-shows of the season’ TorrentFreak, 22 June, retrieved 19 August 2013, <http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-tv-shows-of-the-season-130622/>

LeMay, R 2013, ‘Foxtel locks up game of thrones: no more fast-tracked itunes downloads’ Delimiter, 14 May, retrieved 18 August 2013, <http://delimiter.com.au/2013/05/14/foxtel-locks-up-game-of-thrones-no-more-fast-tracked-itunes-downloads/>

Piotrowski, D 2013, ‘US ambassador explains his fight against game of thrones piracy’ News.com.au, 3 May, retrieved 18 August 2013, <http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/television/us-ambassador-explains-his-fight-against-game-of-thrones-piracy/story-e6frfmyi-1226634534605>

Spangler, T 2013, ‘Time warner’s bewkes: piracy of hbo ‘game of thrones’ is ‘better than an emmy’’ Variety, 7 August, retrieved 18 August 2013, <http://variety.com/2013/digital/news/time-warners-bewkes-piracy-of-hbo-game-of-thrones-is-better-than-an-emmy-1200575271/>